Paper tiger
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This term was coined by Mao Zedong, the former chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. In the book "Words of Chairman Mao Zedong", the paper tiger is mentioned as follows: "Imperialism and all reactionaries are paper tigers".
A paper tiger is generally understood to be a person, an organisation or a piece of writing that pretends to be powerful or influential - but which, on closer examination, actually has no meaning or power. However, this can sometimes only be recognised after a longer period of observation.
In politics, authorities or international organisations are often referred to as paper tigers because they do not achieve real results due to bureaucratism, but merely pretend to want to achieve a result.
